For 26 years, an Ohio drag queen has hosted a local TV show. A proposed drag ban could end it

As Ohio lawmakers advance a bill that could reshape where and whether drag can be performed, The Advocate spoke this week with a performer who has spent more than a quarter century bringing the art form into local living rooms.

Darryl Bohannon, known as Ms. Demure, has built something both hyperlocal and quietly historic: a public-access show that has aired for decades, weaving together drag, conversation, and community storytelling in a format that predates the current political backlash.

“I’ve been doing my TV show for 26 years now,” Bohannon said. “Last December, I celebrated my 25th anniversary.”

Bohannon hosts Harper’s Bazzaroworld Presents The Ms. Demure Show on Dayton’s public access station DATV. Since 2000, the program has mixed interviews, performances, and civic-minded segments into a platform that reflects Demure’s view of drag not simply as entertainment, but as a means of genuine human connection.

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In a 2022 profile, The Advocate described Demure’s work as "an act of love for her community,” bringing “acceptance and queerness into viewers’ lives” while creating space for local voices.

That's now under threat.

Ohio House Bill 249, which passed the state House in March and is under consideration in the Senate, would redefine “adult cabaret performance” in a way critics say could effectively encompass drag, restricting such performances to adult venues and barring them wherever minors are present.

The proposal is part of a broader national wave. In recent years, lawmakers across multiple states have introduced or passed measures targeting drag performances, typically deploying "adult cabaret" language and framing the restrictions as child protection. Courts have frequently pushed back, blocking or limiting similar laws on First Amendment grounds.

For Demure, those fights are no longer distant.

On May 16, she is scheduled to perform at a suicide prevention fundraiser in Dayton, expected to draw families and young people, exactly the kind of event the bill could affect. Demure said the legislation risks doing real harm to the very communities it claims to protect.

"This bill … is telling me that I’m doing something to prevent suicide," Demure said. "It’s going to encourage more of it."

She said the measure’s reach could extend well beyond nightlife, touching community events and public gatherings that have long served as gathering points for LGBTQ+ Ohioans. And she was direct about where she believes the pressure is coming from: not from neighbors or constituents, but from elected officials exploiting a cultural moment as tensions around gender expression have intensified statewide.

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That view is echoed nationally. Drag performer and actor Peppermint, in a separate interview with The Advocate this week, said efforts to restrict drag are part of a deliberate strategy targeting transgender people more broadly.

“I knew that it was sort of maybe a red herring … to start talking about drag bans,” Peppermint said.

For Peppermint, drag has become an "innocent victim,” a “shortcut” invoked to justify wider rollbacks of rights that have little to do with performance at all.

In Dayton, Pride events have been growing. But at 60, Demure finds herself thinking about legacy as much as the next show. After years of quiet progress, the current climate feels, she said, like a retreat, one that threatens not just her work but the community it was built to serve.

"I’m concerned someday I’m going to have to give the keys away,” Demure said.

Watch an episode of Ms. Demure’s show below.

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